FrameMaker and Illustrator EPS files

[Steve Rickaby]

At 08:34 -0500 12/9/07, Peter Gold wrote:

>Did you try exporting to PDF? Sometimes the Fill > None doesn't appear on screen in FM, but does work in PDF.

Yes, I did, Peter. All attempts to get this frame to disappear in both FrameMaker and the resulting PDF have so far failed, including:

. Setting fill to 'none' in Illustrator

. Setting fill to 'none' in FrameMaker

. Converting chapter numbers to outlines in Illustrator

. Masking figures in Illustrator.

The latter idea is tricky as well, as the whole point of taking the chapter number and title out of FrameMaker [which goes against the grain for obvious reasons] is to give them fancy drop shadows.

It seems that FrameMaker does not handle overlapping EPS files elegantly. Thinking about how Dov said that FrameMaker handles EPSs, though, merely passing them through unchanged to the output stream [well, that's what 'encapsulated' means, I guess], it sort of makes sense, as to interpret an overlap, FrameMaker would have to parse the EPS code and somehow interpret its results.  Harder though to see why it does not render correctly in PDFs, but I don't have the luxury of the time to go into that right now.

I think I have given up on this issue and just accept that the book will have to have 4.5 MB x 27-worth of art files :-(

My thanks to the two Peters, Sarah and Teresa for assistance with this. And as if passed deadlines weren't enough, my ISP has chosen right now to have a Seriously Bad POP3 Day.

-- 
Steve